Dearest Rachel –
Wednesday morning, and we’re up and out after an hour’s breakfast. Daniel and I try to eat as early as possible to finish putting ourselves together afterwards, but we barely make it to the bus by our scheduled departure time. You would have been, maybe not so much proud, as understanding of our plight.
Since Ginosar, the kibbutz hotel we’re staying at, is several hundred feet below sea level, we start out by climbing the hills around Galilee, weaving back and forth on hairpin turns as we ascend. Yael describes the various crops being grown as we pass orchards and plantations on our way.
She also describes several of the towns that we pass along the way, including one in particular, Zfat, that was the center of Kabbalist philosophy around the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century. It may be a gross oversimplification, but she describes it as rooted in the idea that, by doing good deeds (mitzvahs), people can make the world a better place, and thereby spur the messiah to arrive. While there’s nothing wrong with the idea of making the world a better place with everything one does, it seems odd that a better world would necessitate His arrival; you don’t summon a repairman if you yourself can get everything working properly on your own.
Some forty minutes in, we find ourselves at our first stops, that of Tel Hazor, perhaps the largest archaeological site in Israel, at least in terms of sheer size. It spreads out over a number of acres, although it’s clear that the ancient city extended for some distance even beyond the area claimed by the Department of Antiquities; there’s a private farm to the north of the site, whose owner has been restricted to certain crops that will neither disturb either the relics buried below nor obstruct the view of the mountains of Naphtali to the north.
Continuing further north, we arrive at Caesarea Philippi and the stone cliffs containing “the gates of hell” that will not prevail against the truth that Jesus is the Christ (or in Hebrew, the Messiah):
I will say that, while this can be a moving experience for one taking it all in for the first time, I worry that I’m so concerned about getting the right shot or the right words that I might be missing out on the moment while in the moment; too much like Martha, and not enough like Mary, if you will. On the other hand, it’s not unlike the rehearsals at church where everyone tries to get everything just right so as to improve the experience for those worshiping around them; if it does that much, it’s worth it
And let’s face it; worship shouldn’t be an entirely emotional experience anyway; those same emotions that prompted Peter to stake his claim as to who Jesus was also caused him to call into question his Lord’s subsequent plans – and getting rebuked as ‘Satan’ in the process.
***
The next couple of hours pass almost unnoticed; I’d nodded off on the road to Caesarea Philippi, and by the time we got to our restaurant in a Druze village in the Golan Heights, I was still more tired than hungry. And since Daniel and I are accustomed to eating only two meals a day anyway, we decided to skip out on it in order to nap a bit longer.
I have to confess, the modern history of Israel isn’t as interesting to me as the stuff that verifies what’s written in the biblical texts. True, it’s a testament (if you’ll pardon the expression) to the resilience of the Jewish people – or, if you prefer, to the fact that Someone is protecting them – but I don’t connect with these facts to the same extent as those that I’ve read about since childhood. I’m not sure if that make me sound callous, considering all they’ve gone through, especially in the last couple of years, but compared to those calling for their elimination, well…
Anyway, as we drive on up to the ruins of Gamla, on the northeast side of Galilee, there’s mention from someone about how, at Tel Megiddo (which we’ve just been to yesterday), there’s been a new discovery of artifacts pertaining to an apocalyptic cult dating from Canaanite times.
Speaking of apocalypses… I had to get a refresher course on the significance of the city of Gamla, since it isn’t name-checked in the Bible. However, it does get referenced by reputation, as the “city on a hill” that “cannot be hidden”; while it couldn’t be seen directly from the Sea of Galilee, the light from the place and its some six thousand inhabitants would shine well over the mountains whose formation (like a camel) gave it its name. Its ultimate fate, predating that of the more-famous Masada, may also have been foretold by Jesus when His disciples asked Him about the “day of the end”; He concluded His explanation with the seemingly cryptic remark that “where the corpses are, there the vultures will gather.”
We can’t stay here long, as with just about any other place here. Every location is close to another as the crow flies, but we aren’t crows. We have to drive up, down and around each mountain; there are no straight shots from point A to point B. Our next (and final) stop is at Omer’s home (he’s the fellow who heads up this tourist operation), and while it’s only down by the southeastern shore of Galilee, that still ends up being a twenty-minute drive from Gamla. Then again, that’s what it takes to get from our house to the Des Plaines campus, so maybe that’s not worth concerning myself with.
His home isn’t the one we visited back when you were around; Omer and his family moved from the Jerusalem area some five or six years ago. Not that it got them away from the ‘action,’ though; there’s nowhere in Israel that wasn’t touched by the recent troubles. Still, at least his bomb shelter didn’t actually have to prove its mettle against live ordnance, despite the family spending a few tense nights in there not all that long ago.
As for the meal – put together by a local Druze family, who appear to have a reputation for excellent cooking – it was pretty good, even though I couldn’t tell you what any of it was (one item looked like an empanada, but I’m sure that’s not what it’s called). The power outage was actually short – pardon the pun; I doubt it was connected to the brief electrical storm – and everything went fairly smoothly.
However, now that I’m back to the hotel, still getting everything put together to send to you, I’m going to draw the account to a close. If nothing else, I’m going to have to get a solid night’s sleep in order to get on with tomorrow’s activities. So while there may have been more to relate, this will have to do for now, honey, and I hope that’s okay with you. Just keep an eye on me, and wish me luck; I’m going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 